Seemingly conflicting impulses, philosophies, paths, and powerful ideas ultimately converge April 14-17, 2025 to create a very special event, The Language of Computation – Constructing Modern Knowledge in Reggio Emilia.

I have been aware of the Reggio Emilia and a student of its educational approach since the mid-1990s. Our daughter attended a “Reggio-inspired” school and Reggio Emilia inspired my doctoral research with Seymour Papert in which we created a utopian school for severely at-risk learners inside a troubled prison for teens based on his theory of constructionism. Decades ago, Papert, his colleagues, and the early childhood educators of Reggio Emilia independently laid the foundation for what became known as the maker movement.

In 2009, I paid my own way to Reggio Emilia for the first of what would become many trips to one of the greatest places on earth. During that official study tour, I found myself in the office of Carla Rinaldi, President of Fondazione Reggio Emilia, who after exchanging pleasantries informed me that “Seymour Papert sat in the exact same seat you are in.” A connection was made – not just an interpersonal one, but a convergence of intellectual traditions and ideals. Over time, Carla participated in two Constructing Modern Knowledge institutes as did Lella Gandini. Most recently, the next generation of wise Reggio educators was represented at CMK by Barbara Donicci and Elena Sofia Paoli. The Language of Computation is a collaboration fifteen years in the making.

Constructing Modern Knowledge was born out of a desire, shared with Seymour Papert, to build a bridge between noble progressive educational traditions and the affordances of modernity. The educators of Reggio Emilia don’t hide from the challenges or opportunities of the contemporary milieu, but seek ways to engage even the youngest children constructively in their world. This fearless and optimistic embrace of the future, warts and all, sets the Reggio Emilia Approach® apart and may explain its longevity as a movement.

In my various encounters with Reggio, I noticed mathematics and mathematical fluency were not given the same level of careful attention dedicated to the arts, literacy, and even science. One of the languages of children seemed missing. This is not an indictment of the Reggio Emilia Approach®, quite the contrary. Mathematics is the pain point for most if not all efforts at schooling, even the most progressive efforts.

The question of why schools, even the best most creative and child-centered ones offer such impoverished computational experiences or why it is acceptable for children to “hate math,” is not particularly interesting or efficacious. A better use of our precious time might be better spent creating a new menu of computational experiences that are mathematically nutritious.

Seymour Papert recognized this conflict and dedicated much of his professional career to doing something about it. Many of Papert’s efforts from helping Piaget understand how children construct mathematical knowledge, to the invention of the Logo programming language and the first LEGO robotics materials for children, to advocacy for every child to have a personal laptop computer, were aimed at realizing a vision of “Mathland” in which learning mathematics would be as natural as growing up in France and speaking French. No one would think to accuse a French child of “not having a head for French.” Perhaps most importantly, in that context, French would be a powerful instrument for learning, doing, and navigating the world.

In a multitude of ways, computers can create the conditions for Mathland and beyond. Ubiquitous computing, generative AI, programming environments accessible to children, a world awash in information, low-cost robotics platforms like the BBC micro:bit, and limitless possibilities for collaboration across space and time can supercharge learning. Our colleagues in Reggio Emilia have much to offer in learning how to do so safely, morally, and with the rights of each child at the center of our efforts. The Language of Computation institute plans to create experiences that multiply the Reggio Emilia approach and Papert’s unfinished legacy of computational empowerment for learners of all ages. This new intellectual terrain is fertile ground for participatory action research and traditional scholarship.

“Across the globe there is a love affair between children and the digital technologies. They love the computers, they love the phones, they love the game machines, and – most relevantly here – their love translates into a willingness to do a prodigious quantity of learning. The idea that this love might be mobilized in the service of the goals of educators has escaped no one. Unfortunately, it is so tempting that great energy and money has been poured into doing it in superficial and self-defeating ways – such as trying to trick children into learning what they have rejected by embedding it in a game. Nobody is fooled. The goal should not be to sugar coat the math they hate but offer them a math they can love.” – Seymour Papert (2006)